Nonproliferation expert Joe Cirincione on the Iran nuclear program
Nonproliferation expert Joe Cirincione looks at why the Trump-Netanyahu policy on the Iranian nuclear program has been so bad and gives a lot of context on the Iranian nuclear program and its international context1.
As he notes on his Substack, part of the interview discusses “the unintended consequences of this 12-day war: the risk of dragging us back to the nuclear anarchy of the 1950’s, when many nations - friends and foes - sought nuclear weapons.”2
That retrogression has been going on since the Cheney-Bush Administration. The JCPOA was a major step back in the right direction. Trump 1.0 cancelled it, the Biden Administration couldn’t be bothered to renew it, and Trump 2.0 has brought it to this point.
And he gives a good broad review of the development of the nuclear nonproliferation program after the Second World War.
He appears in the video to misspeak in referring the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iranian nuclear nonproliferation agreement with the US, as having lasted for 25 years. Actually, it was finalized in 2015 during the second Obama Administration.
This is the speech President Kennedy gave in 1963 announcing the first nuclear arms-control treaty, the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty3:
As he observed in that speech, “Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms. Each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension.”
Iran’s Nuclear Future and Why Strikes Won’t Stop It. Secrets & Spies YouTube channel 07/09/2025. (Accessed: 2025-10-07).
Cirincione, Joe (2025): Why the US-Israel Bombings Did Not Stop Iran's Nuclear Program. Substack 07/10/2025. (Accessed: 2025-10-07).
President Kennedy radio and television address on the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, July 26, 1963. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy YouTube channel 07/26/2020. (Accessed: 2025-10-07).